I'll start by saying that I mean absolutely no offence by what I'm about to ask! But I've been exposed to a lot of Western riders since I moved to Italy, whereas in the UK I never encountered any, and I need to say this - if only to receive responses from you lot to reassure myself that the majority of Western riders are good horsepeople
I was at the tack shop for a bit the other day, and got caught up looking at the massive selection of Western bits on offer. Some looked no harsher than common English bits, and there were lots of curbs and so on. Fine. However, most of them had very thin and twisted mouthpieces, which made me a little uncomfortable. There were also several that I can only describe as torture devices. One with the thinnest mouthpiece I have ever seen - like two wood-screws attached together, with the tiny ridges to match - I'm envisioning a horse with multiple tiny cuts across his tongue. One with about 30 independently-moving metal rings along the length of the mouthpiece - I'm imagining 30 different parts of the tongue being pinched at the same time. Also one that was, literally, a bike chain - again, I'm seeing painful pinches on multiple parts of the tongue.
Now, here's the thing. I KNOW that these kind of bits are NOT standard Western bits, and I know that very few riders would choose to use such devices. HOWEVER, the very thought of someone even designing such things makes me sick to my stomach. To my mind, using them goes against everything that is supposed to be good about Western. I know Western horses aren't ridden on a constant contact, but just a single hard jerk on the reins would be enough for some of those bits to cause a lot of pain. I'm just wondering - since I really don't know much about it - how the Western riding community in general feels about the use of harsh bits. And what type of bits people tend to favour.
I was at the tack shop for a bit the other day, and got caught up looking at the massive selection of Western bits on offer. Some looked no harsher than common English bits, and there were lots of curbs and so on. Fine. However, most of them had very thin and twisted mouthpieces, which made me a little uncomfortable. There were also several that I can only describe as torture devices. One with the thinnest mouthpiece I have ever seen - like two wood-screws attached together, with the tiny ridges to match - I'm envisioning a horse with multiple tiny cuts across his tongue. One with about 30 independently-moving metal rings along the length of the mouthpiece - I'm imagining 30 different parts of the tongue being pinched at the same time. Also one that was, literally, a bike chain - again, I'm seeing painful pinches on multiple parts of the tongue.
Now, here's the thing. I KNOW that these kind of bits are NOT standard Western bits, and I know that very few riders would choose to use such devices. HOWEVER, the very thought of someone even designing such things makes me sick to my stomach. To my mind, using them goes against everything that is supposed to be good about Western. I know Western horses aren't ridden on a constant contact, but just a single hard jerk on the reins would be enough for some of those bits to cause a lot of pain. I'm just wondering - since I really don't know much about it - how the Western riding community in general feels about the use of harsh bits. And what type of bits people tend to favour.
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